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Welcome to my family blog. I have been married to Mike for over half of my life. I love my Savior, Jesus. I am a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom to six terrific, interesting children. My 3 oldest were born to me in my younger years, while my 3 youngest were given to me by God in my older years. I am very blessed. ~Cheri

7.20.2010

All adoptive parents know what I'm going to say. We've all been bombarded with questions about the children we've adopted. Some are because of curiosity; some out of concern. Some people are being nosy or just rude. Shortly after coming home with Eva, a man who we saw weekly decided to tell me a couple of racist Chinese jokes, laughing the whole time. I didn't say a word or laugh at his jokes. I was surprised and taken aback.

Recently while out of town, I had an older gentlemen approach me with his wife to be. I had spoken to him before about adoption. He had adopted domestically many years ago and was curious as to why we adopted from China and not the U.S. This time, he points to the three girls and said, "Tell her how much money you got in each of these girls." Not wanting to embarrass the wife-to-be, although I was shocked, replied with a smile, "Priceless."

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kind words:

We adopted our daughter when she was 6 and even after 2 years, I'm still SHOCKED at out insensitive people can be... I often wonder if they think she doesn't understand what's being said... I'm still trying to figure out the best way to respond to inappropriate questions and comments, without making Abby feel even more uncomfortable.

Priceless - love it....so totally true! We have all unfortunately heard the rude, insensitive comments - "how much did she cost", "is she one of those Chinese babies", the Vietnam Vets who make a comment about "protecting our country from those (fill in racist word)". It makes me sad for my daughter (and other children we are lucky enough to have as part of our families) but it also makes me sad for the narrow minded people we live among that they can't see we adopted our children because God made them to be a part of our family.

I'm constantly amazed by how insenstive some folks can be - not because they necessarily mean to, but because they don't know better! Fortnately, we've not had too many comments (expect for one man who commented that my brother David's ears were HUGE and someone else who referred to him as our 'brown brother'). I've also heard folks comment that kids adopted from Korea like our David must be 'half GI'. Ugh. And the money question is fairly common. "How much did they cost?"